{"title":"Disciplinary differences in lexical bundles use: A cautionary tale from methodological variations","authors":"Betty Samraj","doi":"10.1016/j.jeap.2024.101399","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Lexical bundles use in academic discourse has been explored across numerous dimensions including discipline, genre, register, student proficiency, and language, among others. These studies have resulted in claims about the nature of these different discourses or their authors, and they have been used in EAP instructional practices. Recent studies on methodological considerations in frequency-based lexical bundles research have pointed to variability in results that stem from changes in criteria used in lexical bundle extraction and corpus composition. Following this, the current study explores the impact of methodological variation in lexical bundle extraction from sets of research articles in Linguistics and Biology, with a focus on the extent of disciplinary variation uncovered in lexical bundles use and function. Experiments with varying frequency thresholds and range specifications as well as corpus composition show that results about lexical bundles use in different disciplinary discourses could be more sharply differentiated when certain variables are used, underscoring the variableness in results and the need for caution in interpreting the findings of lexical bundles research. This paper also evaluates claims made in previous lexical bundles studies using the findings from this study. Finally, previous pedagogical applications of lexical bundles research in academic discourse are discussed.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47717,"journal":{"name":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475158524000675/pdfft?md5=22461e28fddab06d2ff420a282a3594c&pid=1-s2.0-S1475158524000675-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of English for Academic Purposes","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475158524000675","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Lexical bundles use in academic discourse has been explored across numerous dimensions including discipline, genre, register, student proficiency, and language, among others. These studies have resulted in claims about the nature of these different discourses or their authors, and they have been used in EAP instructional practices. Recent studies on methodological considerations in frequency-based lexical bundles research have pointed to variability in results that stem from changes in criteria used in lexical bundle extraction and corpus composition. Following this, the current study explores the impact of methodological variation in lexical bundle extraction from sets of research articles in Linguistics and Biology, with a focus on the extent of disciplinary variation uncovered in lexical bundles use and function. Experiments with varying frequency thresholds and range specifications as well as corpus composition show that results about lexical bundles use in different disciplinary discourses could be more sharply differentiated when certain variables are used, underscoring the variableness in results and the need for caution in interpreting the findings of lexical bundles research. This paper also evaluates claims made in previous lexical bundles studies using the findings from this study. Finally, previous pedagogical applications of lexical bundles research in academic discourse are discussed.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of English for Academic Purposes provides a forum for the dissemination of information and views which enables practitioners of and researchers in EAP to keep current with developments in their field and to contribute to its continued updating. JEAP publishes articles, book reviews, conference reports, and academic exchanges in the linguistic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic description of English as it occurs in the contexts of academic study and scholarly exchange itself.